On Monday, Eugene Robinson wrote a Washington Postop-ed suggesting President Donald Trump is self-destructing because "his reality show sees cancellation on the horizon."
"Evidence suggests that Trump is melting down. Again. And for good reason," wrote Robinson. "Fears of a global recession, greatly exacerbated by Trump's erratic and self-destructive trade policies, have sent financial markets tumbling. A sharp downturn would close off one of the principal lines of attack the president was hoping to use against his Democratic opponent. He tried it out at a rally in New Hampshire last week: 'You have no choice but to vote for me,' he told the crowd, 'because your 401(k)'s down the tubes, everything's gonna be down the tubes' if he loses. 'So whether you love me or hate me, you gotta vote for me.'"
Unfortunately for the president, continued Robinson, that line of argument is nonsense.
"Trump is flailing," wrote Robinson. "He berates his handpicked chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, for not cutting interest rates fast enough to goose the economy. He practically begs Chinese President Xi Jinping for a meeting to work out a trade deal — any trade deal, apparently — and is met with silence. He threatens more tariffs but then backs down, at least for now. According to published reports, he sees himself as the victim of a conspiracy to exaggerate the growing economic anxiety in order to hurt his chances of winning a second term."
But Trump, Robinson wrote, is just "raving like a lunatic" rather than fix the problems created or exacerbated by his presidency.
"The nation is still reeling from two mass shootings. The financial markets are yo-yoing by hundreds of points. A bomb in Afghanistan, where we're still at war, killed 63 revelers at a wedding. Tension between the United States and Iran continues to mount. North Korea keeps testing new missiles. India is playing with fire in Kashmir. Hong Kong has been convulsed for months by massive protests seeking to guarantee basic freedoms," wrote Robinson. "And Trump obsesses about buying Greenland."
"The truth is that we don't have an actual presidency right now," concluded Robinson. "We have a tiresome reality show whose ratings have begun to slide — and whose fading star sees cancellation on the way."